


there are demons dancing through your dreams

by CallMeBombshell



Series: we owe ourselves to someone better [1]
Category: Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-09
Updated: 2012-05-09
Packaged: 2017-11-05 01:35:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeBombshell/pseuds/CallMeBombshell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For <a href="http://hariboo-smirks.livejournal.com/301452.html?thread=2501772#t2501772">this prompt</a>: Natasha. She knows what it's like to be unmade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there are demons dancing through your dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Edit 5/13; This is now part one of a two-part (for now) series.

**.first**

She looks up one day to see cold concrete walls and well-worn sparring mats instead of carefully-cleaned mirrors and the polished wood of the barre. For a moment her breath stutters in her chest, her heart pounding in her ears and the world tilts sideways, splinters sideways and crashes to the ground.

Then someone yells, "Romanova!" and she blinks--

\--and the world slots back into place.

She falls into the patterns of lunge, attack, block, retreat as easily as she ever has, no falter to her movements past that initial lurch, and she blames it on boredom; it has been a long time since she sparred with anyone who was good enough to make it interesting, and longer still since anyone actually made her work for it.

But she can't shake the feeling that she's missed something, that she's failed to notice something important. It's not the first time she's caught herself dreaming, not the first time she's wondered, in the back of her mind, what it would be like to be someone else, to live another way. But she was made to be this, here and now, and there is no alternative.

She sinks herself into the rhythms of combat and carefully does not to think about silk skipping across scuffed wood floors or ribbons tangling around strong, delicate ankles.

 

 

 

**.second**

It's dark, not quite midnight, and really, she'd rather be doing this at a later hour because there are still people out of the streets, but she has her orders. Nikolai Krovanich has been selling state secrets to the highest bidder, and now he is her target. Tonight he is throwing a party, a celebration for a local politician, elected because of Krovanich's money despite his clear disdain for the people he's meant to represent.

She honestly doesn't much care what the man's crimes are. Her recon has shown her that he drinks too much, that he beats his wife and sleeps with other women, that he neglects his young daughter and put too much pressure on his even younger son; that is enough for her. She will feel no remorse when she slits Nikolai Krovanich's throat in his own home.

She swings down from the roof of the house across the street, movements sure and steady, and for a moment, she has a flash of a memory, leaping through the air as the music swells, her chiffon skirt floating delicately around her hips, her fingers trailing, graceful, behind her.

She hits the roof hard and stumbles, the faint memory of music in her ears disappearing under the crunch of her boots and the twinge in her ankle and she curses softly to herself. She cannot allow herself to become careless; there are always eyes watching, and she will not give them any reason to think her defective.

She pushes thoughts of pirouettes from her mind and focuses instead on the knife in her boot, the gun at the small of her back. She has another dance to perform tonight.

 

 

 

**.third**

The man is familiar, achingly so, but she knows she's never met him before. She knows his face, and his name, knows that he's spent the last six months following her around the globe, sticking to her shadows and never letting himself be seen outright.

Until now.

Well, at least for a variable definition of "seen". Technically, she can't see him from where she is, standing near the entrance to an alley, her back to a wall and her face out of sight, phone pressed to her ear while he lies on a rooftop down the block, his sniper's sight trained on her as they talk, waiting for the moment they both know is inevitable now.

"For what it's worth, sweetheart," the man says across the phone line, and there's a smirk in his voice, so like one she used to know, now gone so long ago, and it's somehow jarring to hear it again. "I don't really want to have to do this."

"Neither do I," she says, because it's true, she doesn't want to die, and she doesn't want to have to kill this man if he misses, even though she knows she'll have to.

"Got any last words you'd like to share with the universe?" the man asks, and for all that it's a mockery, she knows, somehow, that he means it. He's got her in his sights, and he's far enough away that she can't predict his movements, can't outrun his shot; he didn't need to contact her, didn't need to talk to her, give her a chance to talk her way out of this. But he did it anyway.

Somehow, she finds herself hoping that he'll miss, if only so that she can thank him for that kindness before he dies at her hand.

"Yes, actually," she says, and she's surprised; she hadn't honestly meant to take this man up on his offer. But her mouth is apparently operating independent of her brain right now. And _What the hell_ , she thinks. She going to die anyway; she might as well say it.

"You remind me of someone," she says, "someone I once knew."

"That right?" the man says, and his voice is so expressive that she wishes she could see his face. She imagines he's arching an eyebrow, skeptical, and she smiles, hopes he's looking.

"Yes. You are much like him."

"Someone you knew pretty well, clearly," the man says. "Friend? Colleague?" His voice is joking, now, like he's talking with one of his fellow agents, not an enemy combatant he's been ordered to kill.

"A lover," she says, and feels the smile on her face stretch into something more real; it's a weakness, but she's never been able to talk about James without honesty.

There is silence down the line, but she can still hear his breathing so she knows he's still got her in his crosshairs. She smiles wider, tilts her head up a bit so he can better see her face, and waits.

"Was he handsome?" he asks at last, and it's not what she was expecting, not even close, not the accusations of disbelief that she though she'd get, the _Did you kill him, too?_ and the _Did you really love him?_ and the _Someone loved you back?_ But there's nothing of those questions in his voice, and it makes her laugh.

"Yes," she says, still laughing, "yes, he was."

"He's gone, isn't he." It's not a question, and that's what makes her answer.

"I may still see him someday."

There's silence again, and she's beginning to think he's getting ready to take his shot, but then she hears his voice again, and it stops her cold.

"I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

 

 

 

**.fourth**

Two weeks after she hangs up with the sniper and walks away alive, her phone chirps and she looks down to find a text from a blocked number.

_There's a place for you, if you want it. I'll see you soon. -B_

Natasha smiles, turns away. _Perhaps,_ she thinks, _it's time to be someone new._


End file.
